


Christmas Holiday

by took_skye



Series: Living For the Night [8]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, F/M, POV Female Character, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dinner out on Christmas Eve with PI Aaron Hotchner takes Emily Prentiss in a direction she didn't ever think she wanted</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Holiday

  
_""Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart...filled it, too, with melody that would last forever." ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich_

***///***

I don’t believe in love at first sight. I don’t believe in love. I used to when I was young and foolish and never heard it from others. But now, years later, I’ve heard it too often and seen it too little. I do, however, believe in lust, in lust at first sight. In that immediate spark that sets off a small fire in one’s belly…that’s something real. Something that can’t be denied or faked. Something I felt the moment I laid eyes on the private investigator, Aaron Hotchner. Something I know he felt too.

There was never clear evidence of it, no puff-chested preening, long leering, or nervous glances at parts he shouldn’t be examining accompanied by blushes. He hides his feelings even better than he hides the marks from years working on the streets of this deadly city that rarely shows remorse or kindness. So how do I know? It’s still in his eyes, like it is with most men. They always lock onto mine as if looking anywhere else might burn.

As he tells me he doesn’t want me alone until the cop, Foyet, is on-shift and thus under Morgan’s watchful eye I smile a little. “Don’t want his nasty hands all over me?” A tease, a dare to say yes and explain why.

“I don’t want him hurting you.” The man parries like an expert, setting his eyes back to the papers before him.

I thrust. “Care about my safety, do you?”

“I don’t want him hurting anyone,” he parries once again. This isn’t his first turn matching wits with a woman.

I decide to retreat for the moment with a sigh and new cigarette. “Well I’m not sitting alone in your office all evening.”

“Garcia will be here.”

“I’m not staying in an office. It’s Christmas Eve for Christ’s sake, I aim to enjoy it.”

Hotch finally looks back up from those papers once more and, again, his eyes go directly to mine. “I’m sure Garcia would be more than willing to take a break and go grab dinner with you, Ms. Prentiss. She’s always talking about a nice little sub shop a block away, you can pick up some food there and come back to eat it.” He looks back to those damned papers. I'm starting to get jealous of them, those papers that hold his attention longer, and with less effort, than my entire being. “I’d rather you not eat out though, Garcia’s not equipped to handle an attack from a man like Foyet.”

“And what makes you think I’m not?” I’ve dealt with psychos before, I’ve dated them, slept with them, and thrown them out of my life in ways that ensured they never came back. The fact this one happens to have a badge makes no difference. No difference at all.

“You have no idea what this man is capable of, Emily.” I know I’ve hit nerves with him using my first name, but I get no chance to try and press around for more reactions or information. “But if you’re going to insist, if otherwise you’ll cause another distraction, I’ll take you out to dinner myself.”

I give a smile, but I feel it coming out all wrong. Victorious comes out pleasant bordering on submissive, as I reply. “Thank you, Hotch.”

***

We end up at Blackwolf’s, my favorite restaurant. It’s decorated inside and outside with lights that should flash and glow on trees around the city. On a tree those lights perform their formal duty as reminders that this is a time for families and for all people to behave like children. In a dark-lit upscale eatery however they become mood lighting suggesting that, even on a pure holiday night such as this, there are dark places available in which to do dark deeds. It works to make me feel almost at home yet seems to make Hotch uneasy. “This isn’t a place I’ve been before.”

“Shame,” I reply, unconcerned, as I examine my menu. “The food’s amazing,” I look over the menu itself and smile. “Wine selection too, care to share a bottle?”

“I don’t drink while working,” Hotch replies as he pours over his own menu with as much concentration as he had his papers.

“You’re still working even now that it’s the night before Christmas?”

“I work until the case is solved.”

“So, I’m curious,” I speak as if going to bring up any old topic that pops into my head while setting aside my menu. “Are you always this terrible of a date?”

There’s no parry from him this time, no smooth, quick, reply. There’s silence as his eyes roll up and over the menu to my eyes where they settle as brows seem to fight between knitting together and arching apart. “Date?”

My own brows arch to ask what he thinks. _Date. Will you be mine? Can I be yours?_

He goes to set his menu on top of mine without pulling his gaze away before the fingers of his hands intersect and steeple. “You think this is a date?”

“I’m not a little girl who’s building up some kind of romance, don’t worry,” I assure him. “But I do want you and you seem the type of man who’d prefer to give a woman the dignity of a date before sleeping with her.”

Of all the reactions I expect, and I expect many, he gives me the best. The one I don’t expect at all. Hotch’s chuckle starts somewhere in his chest and bubbles up slowly, softly, but steadily until it reaches his throat and mouth. His instincts have him put a hand over his mouth a little but I can still see the large smile anyway. When it subsides enough for him to speak the man does. “The dignity of a date…” he nods his approval as he speaks before taking a deep breath and trying to tuck any signs of his humanness back under that steely mask of professionalism. “Ms Prentiss…“

“Emily,” I cut in with a smile.

“Emily,” he corrects himself without being thrown. “I’m more than happy to call this a date if you’d like, but I’m not going to date you.”

“I don’t really want to date,” I remind him with a playful curl of my lips.

“I’m not going to be with you except as it relates to your case, my work.”

The waiter breaks in and we order. I get the venison and Hotch goes less exotic with a steak…he seems to consent to the bottle of wine I order as he stays mute on drinks. When the waiter leaves I speak. “Why are you denying yourself?” I ask calmly before breaking things down. “You know I want you and I can tell you want me. I’m not asking you for anything the other girls might. No commitment, no dreams you need to fulfill, and no love that you might not be able to give. So, Aaron, why not just let yourself have what you want?”

“Because that’s not what I want.”

I don’t believe a word of it, but I play along. “Then what do you want?”

The man says nothing for a long while as, for the first time, he lets those eyes take a true wander over me as I sit before him. There’s no blush, no leer, just a strange examination as if he’s committing me to memory so he can envision my presence later when we’re not together, not in the same room. Then he smiles faintly, with a hint of sadness. “I want to able to run into you on the street three years from now and shake your hand, kiss your cheek, and hear all about your latest successes. I want to always know that you’re safe and happy despite everything that’s happening now. I want to never have to visit your gravesite because you knew me.”

I’m stunned. It’s worse than a sudden dunk in ice water or a slap in the face. It’s worse because I can tell he means every single damn word with all his heart. It’s worse because I’d been wrong in my assumptions. It’s worse because he…cares. I stand suddenly, no longer concerned for the coolness I so often keep. “Fuck you,” bursts out of my mouth before I make that ever-so-dramatic dash for the door.

***

Then, suddenly, everything becomes a great big cliché. From the tears that slide their way out of my eyes and down my cheeks, to the way I use just one hand to pull my hair back out of my face, to the way the snow starts to gently fall from the sky. I hate clichés, I hate the way they force people to view things through certain prisms and make them expect certain things to happen. I hate that the clichés happening now are all related to the one thing I don’t believe in and yet, in this moment, have an urge for more than anything…love.

I hear the door open and the clichés tell me it’s Aaron, still working his trench on properly and when he reaches me he won’t speak, not anymore, instead he’ll be a man of action. I feel his hand grab my arm to turn me, pull me into him a little. I try to break the cliché with a slap to his face. He takes it like a man. I go to repeat the action, this time I only make contact with his hand as it grabs mine midair. “Emily,” he says my name with his usual calm strength as his fingers work their way between mine. It's not to prevent a slap, it's the prevent my running.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I make the best glare I can muster in my state. “Don’t you know where you live, Hotchner? Quaint Cove! You don’t plan three years in advance in this town! You don’t plan three months!” My eyes begin to water once again without my consent and then I ask the question I already know the answer to, but am not sure if I'd rather be right or wrong about. “Why do you even care, huh, Aaron? Honestly…no more ‘I care about everyone’ bullshit. Why do you care about what happens to me, Emily Prentiss? What makes me so special that you’ve planned my future before I have?”

The man I hired to find my roommate, the man who now seems as dedicated to me as to my case, gives me a soft look that’s even worse than the things he said to me in the restaurant. “Because, despite my best efforts and greatest hopes, I could see myself loving you.”

“I don’t want that,” I tell him stubbornly.

“Neither do I,” he replies in kind. His resolve breaks first as a sturdy hand, too warm given the season, goes to hold my cheek and then his lips greet mine without the tentativeness I suspected they’d have given Hotch’s words.

It’s a Christmas cliché, this is. Declarations of feelings as the snow whips around two figures in the night, a slap, a kiss, and the soft glow of tiny, multi-colored, bulbs serving as witness to it all. My hand breaks free of his and my arms make their way around his neck as I move in for reasons outside pure desire, for reasons my heart understands even as I don’t. His arms tug his coat around me as if mine alone aren’t enough protection to satisfy him that I’m safe. Together we melt the snow that lands on our skin. I begin to commit the moment to memory; a moment I know is so rare it may never happen ever again. I hate that it might not happen again, I hate that I’ve fallen for all the clichés the other girls fall for, I hate that a single moment’s begun to unravel all those beliefs on love I’ve had for years, and I hate loving it as much as I do.

***///***

 _"What is it you see in my eyes?" / "I see a crazy calm. You're sick of running, you're ready to face what you have to face but you don't want to face it alone." / "No, I don't want to face it alone." ~ The Customer & The Salesman, Sin City_


End file.
